


Wicked

by rubbished



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Swapfell, Blood and Gore, Minor Character Death, Other, Salem Witch Trials, Swapfell Sans, Witch Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubbished/pseuds/rubbished
Summary: He can’t contain a crowd this big, a crowd this ravenous to see the blood of an innocent spilled, not even with all his men at the ready, quivering in their boots and not from the winter’s freeze.He’s scared.Terrified.Alphys could have never prepared him for this.It's a world driven to hysteria, and Sans is just starting off as captain of the Royal Guard. He comes to find he's bitten far more than he could ever chew.





	

It’s cold—almost abominable. It sinks through the thick hides of their coats, freezing their plated armor and seeping into their bones with an unbearable chill. Frost feathers the front of the flushed faces of these men, their breaths pluming and swirling like the smoke from a seething dragon. On their steeds do they ride in a formable formation, as silent as the snow that drifts to the grounds below. 

The forest are thick and dense, miles of snowy lands and trees that curl and reach for the blank sky with begging hands, fingers black and gnarled with the harshness of this endless winter. It’s here in these forests that unthinkable horrors occur, things that are later told to young children right before bed as an ominous tale to keep away from the deep woods. The brush is vast, easy for one to lose their way if they hadn’t known any better. Sans however, knew this forest like the back of his hand—the most bittersweet of notions that this wasteland was like his second home. 

Remaining at the head of this formation, the captain leaves his chin high as he leads his troops on their usual patrols through the wilds. His grip is tight on the reigns of his steed, their coat as black as the dead of night. A beauty, all of the guardsmen horses, they resemble haunting shadows in stark contrast to the blinding brilliance of the snow trampled beneath offending hooves. 

The Royal Guard has always been an authority that struck fear and respect in one’s soul, it was almost palpable. One could see it in the pale sheets of their faces at the sight, eyes owlishly wide and stricken as they march through the village. Starving children cling to the skirts of their mothers and cower away, those with guts and gusto stand firm, eyes blazing with the determination to become one of them one day. To ride the horses with hides made of the threads of night, to wear armor that glitters brighter than any gold coin swiped from someone’s pockets. It was those that Sans watched as he passed by, eyes blazing with his own determined fury. The clashing of glances lasted too long, a challenge from the captain himself. 

 _I’d like to see you try._  

Today is one of the easier days, much for the troops relief. Just a simple sweep of all the sectors in Snowdin for a simple report and the rest of the day could be spent in the bottom of a cloudy glass in the tavern. However, with how thorough the captain is known to be with every part of his duties, the patrol is taking much longer than Sans’ subordinates would care for. They keep their mouths clamped shut, although. The captain today seems to be in a rather good mood, which is considered strange among the gentleman—but of course not strange enough to be vocal about it to their intimidating captain. 

Orbs of icy blue scan the perimeter meticulously, a hand silently ghosting over his horse’s mane. The softest of whinnies, vapor billowing from their nostrils as they wait patiently, and with a gentle kick in the stirrups they’re on the move once again. Sans never utters a word as he looks about, resolved hard and stony— as cold as the ice that hangs from tree branches in glittering blades. The freezing cold leaves Sans cheekbones flushed, although he doesn’t seem to notice nor care, the chill settling into his bones a strange comfort for the small skeleton. 

“... I believe that is enough for today. Not visible threats or crimes to be documented. Report back to our station and from there you will be dismissed.” 

Despite his young age, the skeleton speaks with an air and demeanor far beyond his centuries. His words elicit nothing but obedient nods from his comrades, their shoulders slumping with relief at the prospect of a drink or two in their future. They try not to show it too much as they guide their horses, homeward bound once again.  

That is until screaming cuts through the quiet, frigid air like a blade. 

Immediately Sans is on the defense, runes burning with magic like electricity along his concealed bones. He’s going to bark orders at his men, ready to tell them to be on the defense, keep their surroundings guarded— until a figure comes into view, barreling right towards them. It’s a younger monster, dressed in rags far from suitable in this unforgiving weather. Glassy eyes wide with terror does the boy stumble towards the Royal Guard, coming to stop before glistening hooves. He falls to his knees, voice a mere tremor as he struggles to speak, barbed tail going to curl around his leg anxiously. 

Tears flow freely down the boy’s flushed cheeks, snot dribbling from their nose down to their cracked lips. They look so small, helpless as he peers up at the Royal Guard. He’s afraid, but far too afraid to care that he dared disrupt the troops during their patrols. 

“P-please help us... my sister. They... They have her. In the village.” He stammers, near hysterical. 

_They._

Sans’ soul sinks like a stone in a river. 

There is hardly a moment of hesitation before the skeleton guardsmen is whirling onto his troops, that same look that could make one’s heart cold with fear adorning his features. “Dogamy. You will keep the boy here, I want answers as to what may have caused this. The others, you will follow me. We’ll need as many men as we can get.”

He can see it, the fear broiling in the eyes of his men, despite how hard they attempt to steel it away. It makes Cobalt remember his own soul thrumming wildly within the confines of his ribcage. He has to will himself to breathe, a gentle deep breath. He refused to allow fear to grip him the way it has his men. 

Without another glance spared the poor boy’s way, he’s snapping the reigns with a barking call and they’re off like obsidian bullets down the beaten path, towards the village. Hooves thunder in their wake, the trees of the forest nothing more than a blur upon a canvas of white. Knuckles blanch as Sans clutches hard to the leather reins, heels digging hard into the sides of his steed. The horse snorts at the exertion, their head thrashing as foam begins to build along the corners of their bared maws. 

Before they even get close, Sans can smell the fear. He can taste the chaos, it stings in his mouth.

Villagers bustle about in town square, a teeming crowd of monsters rioting, raising hell in any way that they can. The sounds of glass shattering, the rumbling of citizens stamping their feet. They all seem to surround something, their cold and dirty bodies close together as they huddle over one another. It’s a cacophony of disorder, and the blazing torches clutched in the blanched knuckles of angry villagers are like beacons of horror for the captain. He sees the fires in tiny blazes before they even come into a skidding halt into the town square. He hardly cares for the villager that go to dive out of the way of forgiving hooves, quickly dismounting. Sans shoves away the curious stragglers, the ones desperate, pining to witness some action. He tries to shout, but his voice is swallowed within the sea of angry cries. The throng is like a swirling vortex, ready to eat anyone who dares step forth whole. And yet Sans finds himself moving through the teeming people with reliance of his own strength and stubborn determination. 

It isn’t until he sees it that Sans stops dead in his tracks, two monsters seizing a little girl by her arms, dragging her kicking and screeching up onto the little wooden stage. The angry mob cheers, some spitting words so venomous one would think this little girl had committed the most heinous of crimes. Someone watching from afar wouldn’t understand, the girl hardly looks a day over a century.

The captain of the Royal Guard understands completely.

The little girl continues to scream as these two men hold her firm, allowing for the crowd to yell and spit and throw whatever they please at her. Tears run in hot rivers down her face, and the distinct cries of what must be her mother could be heard from afar. No matter how hard the girl fights, hands on her arms hold with a bruising and tight resolve. Another man, the apparent ringleader, joins the stage. The way his chest swells with pride makes Sans’ own soul contort with disgust. The villagers quiet down enough for the man to speak, a gentle hush resonating throughout the lot. 

Simply for dramatic effect, the man clears his throat, a thin smile pulled over blue lips as he begins to speak. His voice is a booming bravado that sends shudders down Sans’ spine. He’s of an abnormal shape, a potbelly adorning gangly limbs and a sunken face. The scales of his hide glisten with a dark, slimy sheen, a rictus grin peeling at the leathery texture of his face. Eyes, like twin pools slit with a serpentine leer, both eyes clouded with billowing plumes of blood.

“The people of Snowdin. Brothers and sisters alike. I thank you for joining me today like we are one.”

There’s a gentle jeer from the crowd, the way this man is able to captivate a crowd startles the skeleton monster.

“And in a way, one could say that we are one. This village is like a machine, each and every villager a cog in something far greater than simply you and I. All of us, together. Now that is something far bigger, far greater.

“It takes a lot for one to keep a machine running, all the cogs have to fit together. Freshly oiled, no kinks or bumps and imperfections allowed in our perfect machine— our perfect union. Because without every single one of you doing your part, helping your fellow brothers and sisters, this machine would be as good as scrap metal rusting away to nothingness.”

A charming smile graces the monster’s lips, teeth jagged and shredded in a horrible array. The man owns a tongue of silver, far too persuasive with the words that flow like silk from his lips. Glittering eyes like green jewels leer down at the sea of villagers, before he’s seizing the little girl by her hair. His hands are massive, thick and calloused like the trunk of a tree, his gaze is cold, unforgiving as he regards the little one. She cries aloud, babbling incoherently through her pathetic sobs. Her own quivering little tail curls around one ankle— an obvious habit having been adopted by their older sibling. 

“Although I do say the machine needs every single part to work together, there are simply pieces that just refuse to fit into place. So what do we do with those pieces?” The near-playful lilt of his tone indicates this hasn’t been his first time, a wicked grin as he yanks at the little one’s hair. She shrieks aloud, hands scrabbling for the cruel man’s hand. He holds firm and true, beaming as if it were Gyftmas morning at the crowd as they shout their predilections.

_“Gut her open!”_

_“Slash her throat!”_

_“Burn her at the alive!”_

_"Kill that damned witch!"_

They bray and snarl, their words a wicked incantation. Like animals do they thrash against one another, like feral beasts locked away in the cage, Sans finds himself moved along with the waves of the rioting villagers, although he can’t find the will to move. He’s frozen within time as he watches the horrific display with wide, owlish eye sockets. His men stand before the crowd, shuffling uncertainly, far too afraid to interfere and far to loyal to go AWOL. If only they knew how uncertain their noble captain was. 

At every suggestion, each one more grisly than the last, the wicked man’s grin splits wider and wider over his scaly face. With a gesture of his hand does he silence the crowd, before brandishing a knife from his belt. It gleans menacingly, the hilt terribly gorgeous in intricate, silvered designs. The crowd goes wild, growing rowdier with every suspenseful second. Sans’ throat goes dry as he’s nearly knocked off his feet, nearly swallowed whole by the tidal pool of blood-thirsty villagers. His soul slams within his ribcage, fear and anxiety like an angry vice as it grips him by the neck. He can’t contain a crowd this big, a crowd this ravenous to see the blood of an innocent spilled, not even with all his men at the ready, quivering in their boots and not from the winter’s freeze.

He’s scared. _Terrified._

Alphys could have never prepared him for this.

The terrible man wastes no time, the keening cries of encouragement from the crowd enough to set him into motion. The villagers all fall into something of a frenzied spell, their eyes wide, savage as they scream for the little girl’s demise. The mother of the child screeches her throat raw, begging for some kind of mercy. 

_“Kill the witch! Kill the witch!”_

_“Mommy—!”_

Blade fine and dazzling, the weapon shines in a blinding arc, before it finds its home within the little girl’s chest. Her eyes bulge from their sockets, a gurgling gasp at the metal in her body, and almost instantly does she begin to bleed in streams of violent red. It pools and stains the stage in angry blossoms, coating the man’s hands slick with red. Far too close for home, the mother screams, however her voice is drowned out by the cheers of the citizens. Some reach forward, nails scrabbling at the stage, desperate to sink their claws into supple, youthful flesh. 

A bubbling scream rips its way through her body, convulsing as hands attempt to weakly bat at the knife protruding from their chest. Already are they fading fast, veins like cutting rivers straining along her face. Eyeballs roll like bowling balls around their fixtures, mouth agape as if something were going to climb right out. 

She’s on Death’s door, and yet that doesn’t stop the man. The roars of the villagers simply fuel his murderous fire, his grin growing even more cruel and sickening. Cheeks nearly split as his swollen belly shudders, and with a glittering gaze of malice, he moves that arm once again, driving and dragging the blade further along the little one’s form. 

The sounds of skin, tendons and muscles ripping open is a sickening song. It takes effort to move the knife through bones and muscles, tears like vicious caverns opening along her front. Her filthy clothes awash with her own red, legs buckling as they struggle to keep her body upright. However the man keeps a firm hold on her, handling the child like a rag doll. The whites of her eyes hold a ghastly, chilling gaze as they peer blindly towards the mob. It seems now she hardly notices the metal carving through her, barely clinging on to that fraying strand of consciousness. 

_“This is what it means to be one! This is what it means to be one machine!”_ The man almost sounds mad, his own eyes wide, jaw slack despite the way it curls sadistically along his riddled face. 

_“Kill the witch! Kill the witch!”_

He’s enjoying every blood-bathed moment of this, his own clothes and hide drenched in red. Strangely enough does the violent color suit him, a sickly masterpiece along glistening scales. 

The gory sight has Sans’ metaphorical stomach rolling in waves, the feeling of sick pooling bile in the back of his throat. It’s horrifying, and yet he can’t bare to look away. His skeletal gaze remains frozen in the eyes of the little girl, now pools gone milky, veins almost furious at the idea of death as they bulge and jut around her wide, red-rimmed eyes. In a cruel thought, Sans is certain her eyes were once beautiful. 

Continuing his sickening act, he twists his wrist with one quickened motion, the spongy sounds of her insides ripping wide resounding through the chilling air. A pull of his shoulder, and the blade slips free for the gaping hollow of the child’s chest. No longer does it spill blood like a geyser, instead settling for a gentle stream of merlot, flowing forth and along the stand in a pond of gore. 

The villagers screech and keen, trembling hands painting their crazed expressions in the mess. It holds thick, metallic odor in the air. 

Near Sans’ feet, someone vomits, then begins to roll in their own sick. 

_“Kill the witch! Kill the witch!”_

Metal clattering into the broiling sea of blood, the man beams proudly at his work. The much smaller, feminine latter slumps in his arms, mutilated body shuddering for a hollow breath. Sans can feel the heaviness of his soul, like an anchor in a ferocious tide. The little girl would have been better off dead and yet, she continues to cling to the last bits of her miserable life. She was so young, all of this for the crippling hysteria that plagued a village awash in poverty. 

To lead in such a world of wicked, it was something far from the hellish depths of Sans’ own nightmares. 

The crowd writhes, squirms together like worms bursting through the filthy earth. Bloodied hands reach out, almost in prayer for the man upon the pools of a traitor’s spill. The man stands before his brother and sisters tall and firm, impressive in his own artificial deity. Here he stands tall, despite the sins painted vivid along his hands— and with eyes glittering bright with malice, a grin as heinous as they come, he dives his hand deep within the gaping ravine of the little girl’s chest. A started gasp, red gurgling from her slack mouth, lips forming a perfect “o” as if in delighted surprise. His arm digs deep, only relenting when the man has discovered his prize.

A perfect little soul, an inverted heart. Plump and beautiful with a youthful luster. 

_“Kill the witch—!”_

It’s far too perfect to be cradled with the blood-soaked grip of villainous claws, a nearly lecherous leer as he gazes down at the firefly-like heart. The villagers fall into a frenzy, bursting alive in a terrifying crescendo. The mother seems to have been silenced by the raving people, perhaps afraid for her own life— and perhaps the life of the family she has left. 

With his treasure in hand, he allows for the little one to fall, hardly caring as they slump onto the reddened stage below.

Sans is certain he would never be able to hear those terrible screams when the man closes the soul around his quaking fist, obliterating the small thing to nothing but dust. And like her soul does the little girl follow suit, one last broken— desperate breath before she crumbles away. She disintegrates in willowing wisps of silver. 

Villagers coo, eyes rolling like their heads in sunken sockets, faces painted in the war paint of their slaughter. The taste of blood and dust is thick in Sans’ nostrils, the morbid taste sharp in his mouth. His men have long fled the scene, discerning their own loyalty through the spiraling sanity of this small town. Sans is afraid, it was fear that nestles deep within his bones, his magic running cold within his marrow. 

It’s a fear that never seems to go away completely, even after months past after that horrific morning. More are slain with each day fear, paranoia, a hysteria that swells and broils into this dark little beast, one that claws and rakes through the souls of the citizens. It lumbers a bows, dragging their dagger-like fingers as they go. It is found in the eyes of wide-eyed mothers, the trembling children that cling to their skirts, the fathers that set their torches ablaze at a moment’s notice. At the smallest sliver of suspicion. A fear has found a place in Sans’ own soul, to live among the mad and the mad world they all reside in. 

No one is safe, no one is completely sound. 

Anyone can betray anyone. 

And they most certainly _will._

**Author's Note:**

> One of my best friends and I have our own Swapfell verse that has heavily inspired this drabble and what's it all about, and I thought it'd be neat to portray just how different life is for our brotherly muses. I hope you enjoyed reading, and please let me know if there's any mistakes! Positive feedback is also greatly appreciated. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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